Versatile Thamil Poet Sillaiyoor Selvarajan

NEW YEAR DAY!

Today is New Year day, they say,
But nay, for us, no, it’s not today!

If today was New Year,
At our home,
There would have been merriment
In what and what form!
Eating and drinking in festival norm!
Chinese crackers and fireworks galore!
We would have made pancakes and sweets,
Carried them in covered trays in ancestral kins!
Clad in new and silky garments
We would roam the streets
Wishing each other!
Wife, child and all
As dusk tends to fall
Gone to the village hall
For the fain damsels’ ball,
On enjoyed a show and shared with comrades
The local sweet brew!
A total full date
Of joyous night late
Today would have been!

Today is New Year Day, they say,
But nay, for us, no, it’s not today!

Bread there’s none,
No milk for the little one,
No timely meal, no rice, no porridge,
Even pure water is scarce!
For the shell-cup of black coffee
No sugar to palm-lick!
No clothing to change, so we take no bath;
No shelter under which
Our heads could we lay!

Today is New Year Day, they say,
But nay, for us, no, it’s not today!

This Earth-cart to pull,
The worker is bull;
The tiller who tills
The granary till,
By no choice of his will,
To eat he has nil!

So, New Year Day,
For us, not today!

Then, when will that day,
Dawn for us pray?
Nay, for us, no, it’s not today!

The day man does plunder
Another’s bread and butter,
The day humanity seizes
To be divided by races,
Caste, creed or colour,
No by national valour;
The day world enacts
A universal law
Of live and let live…

Until that day
There’s no New Year’s Dawn!

Sillaiyoor Selvarajan